Arelious Walker, on the right pastor of TheTrue Hope Churc of God and Christ, Bayview, had men from the drug rehanb center he supervises mowing the lawn of a new seniorcenter that is opening.Photo By Kurt Rogers

Photo: Kurt Rogers

Arelious Walker, on the right pastor of TheTrue Hope Churc of God...

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Cole Hardware's Rick Karp, is fighting to keep Home Depot out of San Francisco. Small business owners fear the Depot will suck up mom-and-pop stores and leave the city with out. Rick says His Mission hardware store would close six months after HD opens on nearby Bayshore Blvd and he anticipates that his Haight and Soma stores would lose 20 percent biz.. Photo By Kurt Rogers

2002-04-29 04:00:00 PDT San Francisco -- The effort of Home Depot officials to open a store in San Francisco isn't just about hammers and nails and a place to buy drywall. It's become a character-defining moment for a city always fretting about losing its neighborhood character.

While most "no Home Depot" battles across the United States match mom-and- pops against the 1,371-store home-improvement chain, the local version that's peaking today pits San Franciscans against each other. It is shredding the seams on the city's quilt of neighborhoods, exposing its divisions on race and wealth and aesthetics.

Pick a neighborhood and choose a side. In the high-unemployment Bayview, supporters say Home Depot would create 200 jobs in a part of town that barely sniffed the fumes of the dot-com caravan. In neighboring Bernal Heights, residents and merchants think the resulting traffic would destroy the quality of life in their 'hood on the rise.

Retailers on the other side of the city say Home Depot would steal 20 percent of their business. Yet competitors who would be in its shadow pray the outlet ignites business along a stretch of Bayshore Boulevard near Highway 101 where three other large retailers have closed in the last year.

"Me, personally, I'm not worried about competition," said Victor Ching, whose Lumberland is just around the corner from where Home Depot would open on a site where a big family-owned yard, Goodman's Lumber, used to be. "The more the merrier."

But at what cost? San Franciscans have a long history of anti-chainism. An arsonist burned down a controversial Thrifty drugstore under construction in the Haight-Ashbury in 1988.

"So you're riding up 101 and one of the first things you see is a giant Home Depot," said Rolf Mueller, president of San Francisco's Council of District Merchants. "And you think, 'I can see that anywhere.' This is the first step in San Francisco losing its character. This will open the door to others."

S.F. STORE WOULD BE A BIG ONE

On paper, Home Depot's six-year quest to open in San Francisco is about land use, development, politics -- and the pursuit of the $40 million that San Franciscans spend annually at the chain's Colma location. A San Francisco store could be one of Home Depot's biggest on the West Coast, pulling in as much as $70 million per year and contributing at least $500,000 annually to a city looking at a big deficit.

Yet in San Francisco's neighborhoods, the story has become personal. Merchants whisper about how Colma Home Depot employees wore T-shirts depicting the chain's mascot leaning on tombstones bearing the names of hardware store competitors. A Home Depot spokeswoman denied that employees wore the shirts.

Recently, residents of the predominantly black Bayview neighborhood received a mailer saying, "Some people outside the neighborhood . . . don't want the community to enjoy 200 new jobs with benefits like health insurance or paid education." Some interpreted the "outsiders" remark in racial terms.

"It's gotten to this point because of scarcity," said Buck Bagot, a Bernal Heights organizer who opposes the project, preferring that it include affordable housing. "It's because land is scarce in San Francisco, because jobs are scarce in that (Bayview-Hunters Point) neighborhood, and because housing is scarce everywhere."

Today, Home Depot's desire to build a 140,000-square-foot store on Bayshore Boulevard will be center-stage at City Hall. The Board of Supervisors is scheduled to vote on overriding Mayor Willie Brown's veto of a measure that would require all "big box" retailers like Home Depot to get a special permit from the city Planning Commission -- and in some cases from the supervisors -- before they can open.

If he can't raise the votes for an override, board President Tom Ammiano will modify the legislation to allow Home Depot to go forward but place restrictions on future big box projects.

"We all learned something from this experience," Ammiano said. "This talk about this being a defining moment for the city may be a bit overwrought, but all those elements surfaced and we were forced to deal with them when we didn't expect to."

Even as the project moves forward, it leaves behind a big box full of angry people. For residents on both sides of Bayshore Boulevard, the racial aspect was most disturbing; Ammiano hopes both groups seek mediation to resolve further border skirmishes.

BAYVIEW EMPLOYMENT BOOST

In the Bayview, where unemployment is around 20 percent, a local planning body hopes Home Depot will jump-start commercial development along Bayshore.

"Even though the community has spoken in favor of it, again and again, the Board of Supervisors hasn't listened," said Mel Washington, owner of Baycopy Plus and president of the Bayview Merchants Association. "Probably because we're African American, our numbers are down (in San Francisco) and some people have written us off."

When the Rev. Arelious Walker of the Bayview heard that Bernal Heights neighbors opposed the plan, "It sounded like, 'We know what's best for your neighborhood.' It had racial overtones, like, 'You don't have the ability to think for yourself.'

"This isn't just about the jobs," said Walker, pastor of the True Hope Church of God and Christ for 34 years. "This is about a neighborhood's right of self-determination. It's about respect."

Bagot, a member of the Bernal Heights Neighborhood Center board, said, "I found it unbelievable that we could even be slightly perceived that way." Especially since his organization's executive director and board president are Latino and its board includes African Americans.

"We're not a bunch of white NIMBYs," Bagot said. "Everything we do is to help poor, working-class and middle-class people in Bernal Heights and across the city."

In this up-and-coming neighborhood, where "No Home Depot" signs are a common window fixture, residents want to protect the old San Francisco main street charm along Cortland Avenue, as well as the boost in property values that came with the dot-com days. Many fear the stampede to Home Depot would back traffic up their main drag.

Bernal video store owner David Ayoob sold his delicatessen in San Mateo when a big box retailer moved in down the street. Traffic got so bad, he said, "that I could literally stand outside my store and hear my customers shouting from their cars, 'I can't find anywhere to park.' "

Longtime San Francisco carpenter Jim Holland said: "I'm not in favor of it, but Home Depot won't make a bit of difference to me. Any quality carpenter wouldn't go to Home Depot anyways."

But plenty of weekend home warriors would, which scares small-business owners like Cole Hardware's Rick Karp. He predicted that Home Depot's arrival would mean closing his 30th and Mission streets location within six months.

MOM-AND-POP BUSINESSES SUFFER

When Home Depot opened a store in Colma seven years ago, Karp said, 20 percent of his business at his three stores "went out the door. When it came back four years later, it was more of a 7-Eleven type of buyer. If you needed $20 worth of stuff, you came to Cole's. If you needed $100, you went to Home Depot.

"One of the reasons that San Francisco is a city of neighborhoods is that people shop locally," said Karp, whose family has owned Cole since 1959.

Still, it's hard to compete against a nationwide retailer that can beat most prices. And even the most loyal customers chase bargains.

Guenther Leopold predicts losing 20 percent of his hardware, gardening and business, even though his Standard 5 and 10 Ace is way across town in Laurel Heights.

"We'll be hurt a little bit, yes, but the point is, a city of this nature doesn't need big box retailers. That's not why people came here," said Leopold,

who has co-owned the store for 35 years.

Some opponents hoped that Home Depot would open a smaller store, like its "urban" version in Brooklyn, N.Y. But a store that size wouldn't cover costs in San Francisco, said project spokeswoman Evette Davis.

Other compromises to San Francisco's character are more likely. Architecturally, "it won't look like a big orange box," said company spokeswoman Kathryn Gallagher. And all part-time and full-time employees will receive health benefits.

The company is negotiating a binding agreement with Bayview leaders, who hope to hold the chain to its promise to "do its best" to hire half its workers from San Francisco -- with qualified Bayview residents getting first crack at jobs. Said Bayview negotiator Dan Dodt, "This doesn't have to be a Faustian bargain."

If it ever gets done. Home Depot's earliest target date for raising its orange flag is late 2003. Knowing the character of San Francisco's neighborhoods, Davis said, "I realize this is a long way from being over."